Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Bridgend / by Geo. T. Clark, Superintending Inspector.

  • George Thomas Clark
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the town of Bridgend / by Geo. T. Clark, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    !' The Local Board will have the power of calling upon the owners of such tenements to put them in order. The yards should be lu operly pitched, flagged, or metalled, and privies or water-closets J erected, with a drain into the main sewer, and a water service-pipe from the street main. From the crowded condition of many of the cottages in Bridgend, it may not be practicable at present to provide every tenement with a privy, but one may be provided to every two, or at most, every three cottages, and at least one water tap to the same number. The existing cesspools shoiild be filled up, and proper dust-bins for ashes and dry refuse provided. Once properly executed, these arrangements would not cost much in maintaining. These, and the periodical removal^ of the refuse, would be executed by contract under the supervision of the Local Board. 61. Sevs^age Distribution.—The circumstances of Bridgend are on thq whole very favourable to the employment of the sewage for agricultural purposes. Below the town, between it and the old Swansea-road, is a considerable tract of flat land, chiefly on the left bank of the river, well fitted for the applica- tion of fluid manure. 62. Boundaries—The proposed boundary, shown on the annexed map, includes the whole town of Bridgend and a portion of the suburban land, the rent of which is high, in consequence of its contiguity to the town. The boundary is whoUy within the petitioning hamlets of Newcastle Lower and Coyty Lower, but is not coextensive with either of them. 63. Charges.—The data afforded are not such as will enable me to distinguish correctly between the assessed value of houses and lands in the proposed area, neither am I able, in the absence of a detailed survey, to state what will be the amount of the rate for private improvements in each case. I may, however, point out that the water supply, drainage, and house improvements can certainly be effected at a cost which, if borne by house property only, will amount, interest being at 5 per cent., and supposing the debt to be paid off in 30 years, to an average of 3^d. a- \yeek, or, 155. 2d. annually, upon each house rated at or under 51 per annum. 64. Of this payment, about l^d. would be levied as a water- rate upon houses only : Id. as a sewer-rate upon houses and lands, the latter paying in the proportion of one-fourth of the former. And finally about Id. would be levied as a private improvement rate, to be borne by the proprietors of houses, in the proportion in which each is benefited. 65. Summary.—It appears from this inspection of Bridgend— 1. That the town is badly drained and very badly sup- plied with water, that the cottage tenements are in several parts wholly without privies, and nowhere even tolerably supplied in this respect, and that in consequence of the rsi.]
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